Overture Renews Wanadoo Deal

Overture Services and European Internet service provider Wanadoo announced an extension of their paid search agreement today, marking another victory in Overture's quest to maintain its distribution network after its acquisition by Yahoo.

Overture and Wanadoo said the renewal covers Wanadoo sites in France, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In the UK, the paid listings appear on Wanadoo subsidiary Freeserve. Under a deal the two companies struck in December 2002, Overture had provided paid listings for Freeserve UK and Wanadoo France, two of the largest ISPs in Europe, and Wanadoo Spain. Overture began services in the Netherlands this past September.

Terms of the multiyear deal were not disclosed.

The renewal solidifies Overture's European partner network after indications that its status as a subsidiary of portal giant Yahoo would hurt it with distribution partners competing directly with Yahoo.

Some Overture portal partners, including Lycos in the United States and T-Online in Germany, were skittish to continue their distribution agreements with Overture. T-Online switched to Overture rival Google. Lycos is in litigation with Overture over the removal last September of its listings for Google's.

Despite those problems, Overture has kept its network mostly intact. Last month, it expanded its agreement with Lycos Europe to include all the sites in its network. Overture also managed to continue its relationship with Microsoft's MSN, extending it in the United States and United Kingdom through June 2005.